HUMAN EYE AND COLOURFUL WORLD

Human eye: The human eye is a sense organ that enables us to see the world and the colours around us.
Main parts of human eye and their functions:
Cornea – to refract most of the light into the eye. Retina – to act as a light sensitive screen.
Iris – to control the size of pupil. Pupil – to regulate and control the amount of light.
Lens – to form an inverted image of the object on the retina.
Ciliary muscles – to adjust the focal length of the eye lens and to hold the lens in position.

Power of accommodation: It is the ability of the eye lens to adjust its focal length.
* Least distance of distinct vision is the minimum distance from the eye at which objects can be seen distinctly without
strain.
* Near point is the nearest point beyond that eye can see objects clearly. For
normal vision it is at 25 cm.
* Far point is the farthest point upto which eye can see objects clearly. For
normal vision it is at infinity.

Myopia: It is a vision condition in which near objects appear clear,

but distant object appears blurred.
*A person with myopia has the far point nearer than infinity.
* In a myopic eye, image of a distant object is formed in front of the retina.
* Cause of this defect - decrease in focal length of eye lens or
elongation of eyeball.
* This defect can be corrected by using a concave lens of suitable power.

Hypermetropia: It is a vision condition in which distant objects appear

clear, but nearby objects appear blurred.
*A person with hypermetropia has the near point away from 25 cm.
* In a hypermetropic eye, image of a distant object is formed behind the retina.
* Cause of this defect - increase in focal length of eye lens or
shortening of eyeball.
* This defect can be corrected by using a convex lens of suitable power.

Presbyopia: The power of accommodation of the eye usually decreases with

ageing. People find it difficult to see nearby objects comfortably
and distinctly. This vision condition is called presbyopia.
Sometimes it is called old age hypermetropia.
* Cause of this defect - gradual weakening of the ciliary muscles or
hardening of the eye lens.
* This defect can be corrected by using a convex lens of suitable power.

Note - Sometimes a person may suffer from both myopia and hypermetropia.
Such people require bi-focal lenses. In bifocal lenses, upper portion has
concave lens to facilitate distant vision and lower portion has convex lens to
facilitate near vision.

Refraction through a prism:

When light ray PQ falls on the refracting surface AB, it passes from rarer to denser medium and so bends towards the
normal along a path QR. This ray at surface AC passes from denser to rarer medium and so bends away from the normal and
emerges along a path RS. We see that incidence ray PQ and emergent ray RS are inclined to each other.
The angle between incident ray and emergent ray is called the angle of deviation
and angle between two refracting surfaces of prism is called angle of prism.
We observe the following facts-
a) angle of incidence + angle of emergence = angle of prism + angle of deviation
b) Greater the angle of prism ∠ A, greater will be the angle of deviation ∠ D.
c) Higher the refractive index n of the prism, greater will be the angle of deviation ∠ D.
d) With increase in angle on incidence ∠ i, the angle of deviation ∠D first decreases,
reaches a minimum and then increases.
Dispersion: Dispersion is the splitting of white light into its component colours.
* The pattern of colour components of light is called the spectrum of light.
The colours in this spectrum appears in the following sequence:
Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange & Red (given by acronym VIBGYOR).
* Cause of dispersion - Dispersion arises due to the fact that refractive index of a
prism is different for different wavelengths.
Different wavelengths in passing through prism are deviated through different angles
and as higher the refractive index of the prism, greater will be the angle of deviation,
violet is deviated most while red least. This is why violet colour is at lower end of
spectrum and red at the upper end.
* In vacuum, the speed of light is independent of wavelength. Thus vacuum (or air
approximately) is a non-dispersive medium in which all colours travel with same speed.
This is why sunlight reaches us in the form of white light and not as its components.
* Newton put two similar prisms but in inverted position as shown and let emergent beam
from first prism fall on the second prism. The resulting emergent beam was found to be
white light. This means the first prism splits the white light into its component colours
while inverted prism recombines them to give white light. Thus white light itself consists
of light of different colours.
* Rainbow: A rainbow is caused by dispersion of sunlight by tiny water droplets, present
in the air after rain. A rainbow is always formed in a direction opposite to that of the Sun.
The water droplets act like small prisms. They refract and disperse the incident sunlight,
then reflect it internally, and finally refract it again when it comes out of the raindrop.

Apparent height and twinkling of stars: The stars appear higher than its actual position,
when viewed by the observer on earth.
This is because while travelling obliquely through the air of increasing optical density,
light bends downwards (towards the normal). The medium air is not stationary, so
refractive indices of layers go on changing continuously and the apparent position of
the star fluctuates, resulting the twinkling effect.

Planets do not twinkle: The planets appear bigger than stars because they are much
closer to the earth and so we consider a planet as a collection of large number of
point-sized sources of light. So total variation in the light entering our eye from all
individual points will average out to zero, nullifying the twinkling effect.

Advance sunrise and delayed sunset: Before sunrise, when sun is just below the
horizon, the sun rays enter the earth’s atmosphere which becomes denser gradually.
As a result, the rays bend towards normal at each refraction and so sun appears above
the horizon. Hence the sun appears to rise about 2 minutes advance before actual rise.
Similarly, the sun appears to set about 2 minutes late after actual set.

Scattering: If the molecules of a medium absorb incoming light and then emit
them
in all possible directions, the phenomenon is called scattering of light.
Colour of scattered light depends on the scattering particles’ size and wavelength of
light.
* Very fine particles scatter mainly blue light while particles of larger size scatter light
of longer wavelengths. If the size of the scattering particles is large enough, then, the
scattered light may appear white.
a) Blue colour of sky: When sunlight enters the atmosphere, the fine particles of air
scatter the blue colour (shorter wavelength) more strongly than red. The scattered blue
light enters our eyes. That is why the sky appears blue.
b) The sky appears dark instead of blue to an astronaut because there is no atmosphere
in the outer space that can scatter the light.
c) If the earth had no atmosphere there would not have been any scattering. Then the sky would have looked dark.
d) Danger signal lights are red: Since red colour scatters least due to its longer wavelength in comparison to other
colours, it travels longer distance and can be seen from a large distance and so red light is used in the danger signals.
Also red colour is least scattered by fog or smoke; therefore can be seen from a distance.